


Confidence

by Nenalata



Category: Harvest Moon, Harvest Moon: A New Beginning
Genre: Bittersweet, F/M, Fluff, Starry Night Festival, new year's
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-26
Updated: 2016-12-26
Packaged: 2018-09-12 10:10:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 889
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9067222
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nenalata/pseuds/Nenalata
Summary: Don't bring old hurts into a new year.  A holiday gift for MinionRipley!





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [MinionRipley](https://archiveofourown.org/users/MinionRipley/gifts).



> Happy holidays and a joyous new year, MinionRipley! I wrote a little piece that's maybe not quite as whistle-while-you-walk as you'd hoped, but I wouldn't be me if I didn't do something like this. I hope you (and anyone else reading) enjoys a quick Rio and Sanjay bittersweet holiday feels fic.

A knock on the door, and Sanjay swept from the kitchen window, through the open kitchen door, adjusted a plant leaf, brushed some water droplets off the fountain’s edge, threw open the main door with a welcome on the tip of his tongue, and felt the words tumble out of his mouth in a graceless heap of sound. Rio was standing in the doorway. As he shifted aside, a mass of limbs and cloth and awkward gait, she stepped into the mansion, melting snowflakes and firework ashes dotting her coat. The door clicked shut on its own.

He didn’t say, “I’m sorry, Miss Rio, but Master Amir is not here at the moment.”

She didn’t offer a smile and reply, “Oh, Sanjay. You know I came here to see you.”

He didn’t offer her tea. She didn’t follow him into the dining room. He didn’t make a show out of preparing the tea service, the one made of sleek silver and embedded gems, the one Amir’s father had insisted they bring with. He didn’t tell her a new story, one she hadn’t heard yet, about the care Sanjay had taken of the thing the first time Dunhill had written the letter saying their house was built. He didn’t describe the careful polishing, the folding of paper and fluff and silk and bedding to ensure the teapot remain pristine, that the jewels remain in their proper places. He didn’t imply he had a good bedside manner, an attentive eye for detail, dexterous fingers. He didn’t pour her a cup of boiling water into a delicate little teacup.

She didn’t pull tea leaves from her coat pocket in response, or a thermos full of spring herb tea—“To remind you that the new year isn’t so far,” she didn’t say. He had a little drawer in the cabinet in the dining room where he kept the tea leaves she’d given him over the past year, but he didn’t open it and put the gifts she hadn’t given him inside.

They didn’t sit across from each other, each person sipping the steaming cups, quietly for once, the silence heavy between them. Sanjay didn’t apologize first. “I didn’t know you wanted to spend the Starry Night Festival with me,” he didn’t rush to explain, words racing to get out first. “I know you love—I know you like spending time with me, but it’s sometimes hard to really let myself believe. I was trying to avoid hurt when I ignored the topic of Starry Night plans, but now I see I just hurt you. I’m sorry we didn’t spend the night together. I’m sorry,” he didn’t say.

Rio didn’t reach across the table, her hand’s touch light against his skin, warm on his fingers. She didn’t squeeze when he raised his head, lowered by its own accord, didn’t slide her fingers through the creases in his callused palm, a worker’s hand. “I’m sorry I stayed silent,” she didn’t continue where he’d left off. “I’m sorry for not telling you I was upset. It was my responsibility to communicate, to share my feelings, because it’s not fair of me to assume you know my feelings even before I do. No,” she didn’t say when he didn’t try to interrupt, “I’ve thought about this. I love—I like how we so often do communicate, do share, do stay together. And that makes it okay when we don’t always ride the same current together. We have to tell each other when we’re feeling, when we’re thinking, when we’re doing something differently. That’s,” she didn’t pause, “what it means to be with someone you love.”

He didn’t breathlessly whisper “I love you,” the words once uncertain, holding his other hand for her across the table, brushing the teacup to the side.

She didn’t grab it, callus against callus. “I love you,” she didn’t say, confidently, back.

Instead, they looked at each other in the hallway of Amir’s mansion, sterile white walls echoing the squeaking of their fidgeting shoes. Distant firecrackers popped and burst somewhere in town. Rio held up a cautious hand, like a pane of glass separated the two of them. Sanjay held out his own hand, lower, hoping without realizing that he was hoping.

She reached out farther and cupped the side of his face, shattering the glass, and Sanjay dropped his hand. Rio stepped closer, he bent down, tall and lanky, and she kissed him, lips chapped from the winter air but her, her, her, silent and close and he placed his trembling hand on the nape of her neck. He kissed her back.

They didn’t speak. They held each other, gentle kisses and cautious touches trying to speak for them and not quite succeeding but not quite failing, either. They would explain another time, another night when Master Amir and the rest of the town were out on their own, celebrating another new year, setting off another bout of fireworks. For now, this was enough.

Rio pulled back from his kisses for a moment and smiled at him, teeth flashing, and Sanjay thought she said, “The new year isn’t too far.” He covered her words with his lips and let the mistakes of the past year be swallowed in the burst of fireworks, flame, and the feeling of her fingers in his hair.

 


End file.
